La Jolla Canyon: Those Were The Days

 

Yesterday

All my troubles seemed so far away

Now it looks as though they're here to stay

Oh, I believe in yesterday.

~The Beatles (Yesterday)

Think I'm going down to the well tonight

and I'm gonna drink till I get my fill

And I hope that when I get old

I don't sit around thinking about it

but I probably will

Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture

a little of the glory of

Well time slips away and leaves you nothing mister

but boring stories of 

glory days.

~Bruce Springsteen (Glory Days)

Boy, the way Glen Miller played

songs that made the hit parade

Guys like us we had it made

those were the days.

~Those Were the Days (All in the Family theme song)

La Jolla Canyon Trail - Those Were the Days

You young whipper-snappers probably won't recall this, but way back in the olden times, well before the rona ruined everything, and we all had to walk to school and then back home again barefoot in the snow up hill both ways, you could hike into the La Jolla Valley by going straight up La Jolla Canyon. You heard my right. You could actually start at the parking lot near the Ray Miller trailhead and march right up the canyon past the falls, through what I called the Truffula Tree forest (a hillside covered with Giant Coreopsis - it was spectacular in the spring) and into the valley. There was an established trail and everything. There was no need to stitch together a long and circuitous route over fire roads. There was no ridiculously steep ascent up the over-crowded Chumash trail. And there was no illegal off-trail ridgeline hijinks required to get into the valley. You just went straight up the gut. Easy. Efficient. A thing of beauty.

One night back in those good old days when we were camping at the walk-in campsite, I realized that I had left my stove in the trunk of my car. So my boy and I strapped on headlamps and walked back via the La Jolla Canyon trail to retrieve it. An hour and one-half later we were slurping down piping hot ramen back in camp under an oddly purple sky. You could do stuff like that back then because the route through the canyon was open and passable. It allowed for those types of missteps.

But as Bob Dylan famously warned, the times they are a-changin.' And not for the better. I'm no Q-Anon conspiracy theorist or anything, but I've always had this uncomfortable suspicion that the California Department of Parks ("CDP") would rather see the recreating public recreate elsewhere. Thus, they continually take action (or no action as the case may be) that makes it more challenging if not downright impossible for folks to actually access and use the very public lands CDP is tasked with (mis)managing. You want to sit on the beach? That'll be $12 please. What's that you say? You'll just park along PCH and walk down the the beach instead? Ha! We had Cal Trans install "No Parking" signs all up and down the PCH. So hand over the cash. You want to walk that trail? Oh, so sorry, you can't do that. But it's all for your safety you know.  

The Hand of God Closes La Jolla Canyon

In terms of La Jolla Canyon, my distrustful little mind believes that permanently closing off that route has been a bureaucratic fever dream of the CDP for some time. The problem always was how to actually accomplish that without causing a total shit-storm by the public. And then during the winter of 2015 came a miracle, the hand of God from the skies. A drenching storm blasted the coast causing major flooding and scouring the canyon. In the process, portions of the La Jolla Canyon trail were obliterated thus making it impassable to the average hiker. And just like that, the trail was closed and access terminated. Six years running, and the trail remains closed with no apparent plans to re-open it any time in the foreseeable future.

I've got mixed feeling about this. On the one hand, I'm annoyed to the point of apoplexy by CDP's administrative foot-dragging. In no reasonable scenario should it take six-plus fucking years to restore and re-open a trail. I don't care how damaged it is. And CDP's predictable and well-worn excuse that it lacks sufficient resources to get the job done is as tired as Trump's bullshit claims that the presidency was stolen from him. Even if CDP's whining about insufficient resources is true, a brigade of volunteers could probably bang the job out in a couple of months. The National Forest Service does this type of thing all the time with great success. And CDP already regularly relies upon volunteer organizations like the Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council ("SMMTC") for free labor. In fact, SMMTC has already been working the upper stretches of the La Jolla Canyon trail from the northern junction of the valley road to the junction with the Valley Loop Trail. So it would seem that what we have here is simply a lack of will by CDP. Or perhaps something more nefarious.

On the other hand, the continued closure has probably saved the canyon from destruction by the throngs of pandemic refugees who have just recently "discovered" places that the hiking community has known about for decades. It's a virtual certainty that had La Jolla Canyon been open the last 18 months, the area leading up to and around the falls would have been a hot mess of graffiti, discarded masks, beer cans, and used tissues. As I type this, I realize that probably sounds a tad elitist. Y'all probably are thinking "Oh, we see how it is Wildsouthland. You want the trail open for you, but not for anybody else." To which I might reply, "Well yeah!" But seriously, I don't mind other folks using their public lands. I just expect them to obey the Golden Rule that we are all supposed to live our lives by: Don't be trail dick! That means don't spray-paint your lame-ass name/initials/gang insignia/directional arrows/whatever on every available rock and tree. Don't cut switch-backs to save yourself 3 seconds on your way back to the car. If you're in that big of a rush to get back to your television, your couch and a bag of Doritos, maybe just stay home in the first place. Don't leave your nauseating pee rags/sweat rags/snot rags/shit rags along the trail for the rest of us to have to see and smell. This isn't your bathroom and your mommy isn't coming by later to pick up after you. Don't bring your dog on trails where dogs are not permitted and then leave little green plastic bags of poo trailside for the rest of us to clean up. God invented dog parks for this purpose. And if you happen to ride, stop being a self-indulgent asshole by poaching "hiking-only" trails. The vast majority of public lands are multi-use and already open to bikers. You don't need to fuck up the miniscule percentage of trails that are reserved for those who prefer to journey on two legs.

La Jolla Canyon Post-Mortem

So anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, waxing nostalgic about the La Jolla Canyon trail. I'd like to believe that the current state of affairs is not the new "normal." That at some point in time, CDP will demand that its rangers stop playing Paul Blart, exit their idling pick-up trucks, cinch their belts up over their substantial guts, and do some actual trail work. But I don't know whether that is going to happen. It certainly hasn't happened the last six years. So I guess that unless and until that time arrives, all we're unfortunately left with when it comes to the La Jolla Canyon trail is boring stories of the glory days.